I ask people I'm interested in if they know anime when I go to town for some drinks and they know the mainstream. "Naruto, Bleach, SOA, Attack on Titan." Boring..
Some of them know friends who are into anime but they can't understand why they watch this so called "cartoon" in japanese language.
Anime/manga is growing quite popular, hugh increase from when I started in 2004.
In Norway we have Outland who sell manga, figures and some or less anime dvd.
And Neo Tokyo that specialize more on japanese wares.
Huge price you have to pay for the last two things I mentioned but I guess that's why I have the internet for.
I'm not into what we have of events but we have this major one every year in Oslo called Desucon. "http://desucon.no/desu9/".
Norway's largest collection, "all from Japan, Sci-Fi-, Fantasy, cosplaying, artstands and much more"..